University is an Action card from Alchemy. It is a gainer which lets you gain Action cards costing up to without buying them. Its cost makes it fairly slow, since it takes one shuffle to buy the Potion, a second shuffle to buy the University, a third shuffle to play the University, and finally a fourth shuffle to play the cool Action card you gained; however, in a long game, repeatedly buying and playing Universities can lead to a huge number of Action cards in your deck.

FAQ

Official FAQ

If you choose to gain one, it comes from the Supply, must cost no more than , and goes to your discard pile.

Cards with multiple types, one of which is Action, are Actions and can be gained this way.

Cards with Potion () in their cost can't be gained by this.

Other Rules clarifications

Strategy Article

There isn't a strategy article for University.

University is an odd card. It functions somewhat like a combination of a Village and a gainer like Workshop. Its ability to gain -cost cards is a major advantage, as these cards are considerably stronger than cost cards. However, it can only gain actions, which makes it poorly suited to VP-rush strategies. It is a card built for engines and generally has no place in a big money strategy.

University may look like a quick way to get actions, but it is not. It takes too many shuffles (buy Potion, buy University, gain Action, play the Action) and usually buying the action is faster. However, University engines can make up for the slow start by having absolutely crushing numbers of actions by the end of the game. Don't go for University if there's just one key action that you want, make sure that you are willing to get lots and lots of different Actions, and make sure the game will go on long enough for you to use them all.

University is usually not suitable for use as a sole source of +Actions. The main reason is that you cannot usually buy enough of them quickly enough to set up an engine. If, on the other hand, there are other Villages on the board, you can either buy them or use University to gain them fast enough to get a strong engine going. Because University does not draw cards, it is also important to get card draw, in more volume and faster than you normally would want in an engine constructed around typical Villages. University is almost tailor-made for draw-up-to-X cards like Library and Watchtower, especially when there are other disappearing actions like Festival on the board.

-cost cards that you want a lot of in your deck, like Market, Highway, or Bazaar make University stronger. Highway is particularly useful as it synergizes with the sort of mega-turns that a University-based engine can produce, and it also enables the gaining of higher-cost cards like Grand Market or King's Court. A source of virtual coin is important. Conspirator and Bridge are also good cards to see on the board. In the absence of virtual coin, buying some high-cost treasure can be warranted, but it is usually best to rely on cantrip virtual coin that can be gained in quantity without slowing down the deck. It is typically very easy to snatch up Peddler once you get a University engine going too.

Games where more than one player is going for a University-based engine often end on piles. Make sure to grab VP early enough to prevent a sudden win. You can also use this strategy: if it looks like your opponent is getting a more powerful engine going than yours, try to grab a narrow lead and end the game on the same turn.

The presence of cursing attacks on the board often make University weaker, especially when the curses cannot be blocked. In these games, winning the cursing race is very important; buying University often comes at the cost of buying a Curser in the first few rounds, and gives you a disadvantage in dealing curses. A University deck can be slower to get started, and is likely to choke on curses.

Secret History

I tried this in another set long ago, in a broken form. This was a later addition to this set, to supplement the "cares about actions" sub-theme. First it was "+2 Actions. Gain an Action card," which looks so pretty, but was nuts whenever a good expensive action was out, like say Possession. Then I tried "+2 Actions. You may reveal an Action card from your hand. If you do, gain a copy of it." While that can gain you Nobles or Possession on occasion, overall it was weaker than the final version.